One of Skokie's most popular and highest regarded restaurants is leaving downtown for larger digs in Evanston, its owner says.

Kabul House owner Akmal Qazi said the family tried to stay in Skokie, but repeated efforts to find a larger space did not work out, forcing the move to 2424 Dempster St. just over the Skokie border.

Around the end of summer, Kabul House's downtown location will close and the new Evanston restaurant will open up in days if even that, he said.

The move is more difficult for Skokie to digest as the Kabul House has been a major eating attraction in downtown for nearly the last six years.

Skokie provided the Qazi family with interior grant assistance and design funds as well as promotional and marketing assistance to open at 4949 Oakton St., the village said in a statement. During the past several years, Skokie and the Qazi family worked together to try to find a new location for a larger restaurant.

"It is unfortunate that our collective efforts did not result in the restaurant remaining in Skokie," the village said in its statement.

The Kabul House, which serves Afghan cuisine, has received strong customer reviews on Yelp ever since it opened. It also has won several notable dining awards including the Michelin Bib Gourmand distinction multiple times.

Ironically, the success of the restaurant in downtown Skokie is just why Skokie lost it.

Qazi said when Kabul House initially opened, he didn't think it would be so busy. Now on weekends, he said, there are often long waits and customers have to be turned away.

To be able to expand the Kabul House menu and add additional seating as well as a party room, he said, it became clear a bigger venue was needed.

"We're going to start catering not only food, but we're going to do events," Qazi said. "We'll be able to set up a full event with staffing and decor for different occasions."

The Evanston Kabul House will also include a tea lounge for the first time, he said.

"We'll be one of the first tea lounges in the area that will be within the restaurant and serve different types of Afghan teas and desserts."

Following a significant renovation, the Kabul House will occupy the same building that was once home to Chicago's Home of Chicken & Waffles. It will triple the size of the current Kabul House, according to Qazi, and increase seating from 60 to about 140.

The restaurant will include outdoor seating and valet parking service. Staff will double from the current 30 to about 60 employees, he said.

"We did not want to leave downtown Skokie," Qazi said. "We had to make this move from a business decision because we really couldn't close on any property in downtown Skokie. We have outgrown our own facility."

Qazi said his family looked at about five different downtown spots that fell though, mostly because of the sellers.

In one sense, at least geographically, the change is a return to the restaurant's roots.

Shortly after Kabul House opened in downtown, Qazi told Pioneer Press the story of how it arrived there.

Qazi's father, Abdul, initially opened an Italian restaurant in Evanston as strictly a business venture.

Qazi and his brother spent a lot of time eating Italian food at the restaurant but soon grew tired of it. So Abdul Qazi started making his kids Afghan food, and his customers grew to like that food more than the Italian food, Qazi recounted.

Kabul House first opened near Dempster Street and McCormick Boulevard not far from where the new restaurant will be located.

Six years later, though, it closed, and two years after that, Kabul House re-opened downtown with Akmal replacing his father as the owner.

The upcoming closing of the downtown Skokie Kabul House will not end the family's relationship with the village. A second restaurant the family co-owns — the Boiler Shrimp & Crawfish — continues to operate on Dempster Street in Skokie.

Village officials and Qazi said they are optimistic that another successful restaurant can come to the Kabul House space.

"We look forward to continuing to work with the Qazi family to market the prime downtown Skokie corner location that has afforded Kabul House the opportunity to successfully grow, and hope to welcome a new restaurant to the site in the near future," the village said in its statement.

"Yes, we're working close with the village to see if someone else wants to come and take a hold of our hot spot restaurant," Qazi said. "We're having a lot of people look at it now all because of the success that we've had here."